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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-07692 to 363-07698.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-07692 to 363-07698
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Title
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Article about a rural electrification project
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Description
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Original title: "'Those Bureaucratic Bastards' hold up villagers' letters to President Johnson", article about a rural electrification project that the U.S. military hopes will help to win the war against Communists, for the New York Herald Tribune
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AI Usage Disclosure
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Draft transcripts were automatically generated via Google Document AI and are currently under review. Please report significant errors to Archives & Special Collections at archives@unl.edu.
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Transcript
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(Morgan Gandy) SAIGON 10220 (UPIS) The American and Vietnamese governments have uncovered aye potentially secret weapon to win the war against the Communists -- low-cost electricity for the rural villages. The project -- pushed and sponsored by President Lyndon Johnson -- covers supplying low-cost cooperative electricity to more than one quarter million Vietnamese villagers. They become members of the cooperative -- or shareholders -- for one hundred piastres or eighty four cents -- which can even be paid on the installment plan. In a separate military-pacification program, at least one national road will be [deletion: [illegible]] floodlighted into “aye great white way”. The eighty-mile long Route Number Fifteen from Saigon to the coastal resort town of Vung-Tau is scheduled to be the first of the national highways to be electrified. [deletion: The] Aye test facing Vice President Hubert HHH Humphrey, during his [XXXX indicating deletion] current visit, will be to unsnarl the American bureaucracy and then unleash this dynamic revolutionary political weapon off the rice-paddy launching pad. The special cooperative rural electrification project, announced by President [XXXX indicating deletion] Johnson June last year in his SouthEast Asia Aid Program, is already at least six months behind schedule. The President said that the construction of the rural electricity projects would begin November last year and would be completed by April, 1966, “but now we’ll be [insertion: extremely] lucky to start construction in six months,” one highly reliable source explained. [insertion: (More--[illegible]--BD)] first add--morgan gandy--saigon x x x source explained x x x. The five-million dollar appropriation by Congress last year, earmarked especially for [deletion: the] aye three-province electricity project, has already been diverted elsewhere, “and funds are just trickling in for the project,” one highly reliable source explained. One Vietnamese letter-writer borrowed the words of Vice President Humphrey and asked the question--”When [deletion: will] the lamp of hope will shine in our homes?” One high-ranking official explained, “We have the approval of the President, the Washington officials, the Vietnamese government, Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge--but the middle-level American bureaucrats didn’t get the word. They caused us delay after delay. Those bastards have caused us to lose at least six months time. I didn’t think knit-picking bureaucrats could subvert Congress and the President--but, sister, they sure can. We got two lines in the Honolulu Declaration (about rural electrification)--maybe that will shut them up. And maybe Mr. Humphrey will ask enough questions to get things moving a little faster.” (More Malloy--BD) second add--morgan gandy--saigon x x x little faster x x x. Vietnamese villagers have [deletion: been [illegible]] sent letters addressed to President Johnson and to the Vietnamese chief of state both protesting the delays in rural electrification project and expressing their future hopes for it. In the letter to President Johnson, the villagers from Bien Hoa province wrote, “Unfortunately, during the recent month of November, we have been receiving hundreds of inquiries from the part of the Vietnamese farmers members and non-members of our co-op; some inquired about the starting date of construction, others wondered whether construction materials and supplies have been ordered, while many of them borrowed the Vice President Humphrey’s statement to us: ‘When the lamp of hope will shine in our homes?” (More Malloy--BD) third add--morgan gandy--saigon x x x our homes x x x In [XXXX indicating deletion] that province the villagers wanted to hold a protest demonstration illustrating their demands for the rural electrification project--but government officials convinced them to settle for writing a letter to President Johnson. (“Of course, the President never got the letter. Those bureaucratic bastards held it up,” one [deletion: offic] source explained). (See text of the letter the President didn’t receive). Accompanying the letter to the President was a list of onethousand eight hundred signatures of village peasants, some of them saying they represented as many as fifteen additional families. Some of the signatures were neatly penned in blue ballpoint ink, others were scrawled in pencil--and the primitive Montagnard tribesmen [deletion: couldn’t] who couldn’t write signed with a fingerprint of red ink. The signatures and petitions [insertion: along] with the letter to the President filled a plastic-bound notebook [XXXX indicating deletion] one inch thick. [deletion: In a] The letter from the Tuyen Duc province [XXXX indicating deletion] co-op representatives to Vietnamese chief of state General Nguyen Van Thieu read in part: “Where there is light, darkness will withdraw; and where it is wealthy, there is notrptnot communists. We strongly believe that once the rural electrification program for Tuyen Duc province is achieved, beam of light will push back darkness, the repression of communists, who always take advantage [deletion: on] of the darkness to harass and rape honest citizens, will be more effective.” (More Malloy--BD) fourth add--morgan gandy--saigon x x x more effective x x x. The three provinces involved in the special Presidential rural electrification project are Tuyen Duc, [deletion: ninety miles nort southwest] one hundred fifty miles northeast of Saigon; [XXXX indicating deletion] which eventually includes twelve thousand potential families or approximately seventwo thousand person; An Giang province, ninety miles southwest of Saigon, which will eventually include [deletion: [illegible]] twentyfive thousand families, or about one hundred fifty thousand persons and Bien Hoa province, about twenty miles northeast of Saigon, including ten thousand potential families or about sixty thousand persons. (More Malloy--BD) fifth add--morgan gandy--saigon x x x thousand persons x x x. The Bien Hoa and Tuyen Duc projects will tap existing electricity sources, but the [deletion: Ang Giang] source of power in An Giang will require the eventual construction of diesel-fueled electricity-producing plants. The first step [XXXX indicating deletion] in establishing the rural cooperative requires opening [deletion: the] discussions and meetings with village leaders, and then to the entire population that wants to join in the selected areas. The most work has been done in Tuyen Duc province, where [insertion: according reliable source,] “the first day 41 per cent of the people in five [deletion: strategic] selected hamlets were lined up to sign [insertion: the application] and become [deletion: members] shareholders for 100 piastres. Some of them [XXXX indicating deletion] had to wait in line for more than an hour to get up to the desk. That was about fortyone percent of the eleven thousand families in the area--we expect soon to have sixty per cent and the village chief said we’ll have eighty percent soon. But, we’ve had to stop signing up people--once they sign up and pay their onehundred piastres they want the power [deletion: right now] immediately--they can notrptnot understand the delays that we’re having. We’re sitting on a powder key because these people are driving me crazy. Once they pay their one hundred piastres they want electric power right now.” Only several hundred people have been allowed to join into the cooperatives in An Giang and Bien Hoa provinces until the projects are [XXXX indicating deletion] closer to the date of construction. (More--Malloy--BD) sixth add--morgan gandy--saigon x x x of construction x x x. The high-placed source said, “this can be the secret weapon the anti-Communists have been looking for. The whole Vietnamese countryside is in ferment--those people are moving up in the world. The primitive Montagnards first saw electricity in the (American parts of) the Special Forces camps [insertion: and] they won’t go back to their villages. If we can get the women (in Vietnam) interested in this, then the standard of living will increase. It’s notrptnot just an electric light bulb so the kids can study at night. I know in underdeveloped countries the first thing the women buy is an electric iron--which [deletion: frees] releases her from [deletion: spending] hours of time with these charcoal ones. [XXXX indicating deletion] Then the woman will want to buy more and will push the men to plant more land--and to get an electric irrigation pump so they can get three crops a year instead of just one. Then they’ll want to send the son to high school. Rural electricity is the catalyst that triggers the whole revolutionary ferment and change in the countryside--it opens up all sorts of doors. Yes, this is a secret weapon--bringing daylight to the darkness--just because there are hundreds of women going nuts or wild about it.” (Endit--Malloy--BD)
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Date
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1966, Feb. 10
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Subject
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Vietnam War, 1961-1975; Economic assistance; Lansdale, Edward Geary, 1908-1987; Electric utilities; Rural electrification; Electricity in military engineering; Civilians in war; Psychological warfare
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Location
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Saigon, South Vietnam
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Coordinates
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10.8231; 106.6311
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Size
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20 x 26 cm
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Container
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B188, F3
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Format
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dispatches
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Collection Number
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MS 363
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Collection Title
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Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers
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Creator
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Collector
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Copyright Information
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These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.
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Publisher
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Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries
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Language
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English
